Gates y Buffet ponen a prueba la generosidad de los millonarios chinos

Los millonarios estadounidenses Bill Gates y Warren Buffet compartirán una cena con algunas de las personas más ricas de China este miércoles por la noche en Pekín.

El evento ha generado un debate en torno a la filantropía en el país asiático, pues Gates y Buffet lograron convencer a numerosos millonarios estadounidenses a donar la mitad de sus fortunas a proyectos de caridad a través de la iniciativa "Giving Pledge".


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Reclaiming the Moral Life of Philanthropy

Gara LaMarche believes the nation’s charitable organizations have lost “moral clarity,” growing more concerned with “the fix, the intervention, than about reasons for doing or caring about what is right.”

After many decades laboring in large, private foundations, LaMarche has an intimate perspective on this drift in philanthropic mission and practice. He draws several telling examples from his own experience. As head of the Texas Civil Liberties Union in the mid-1980s, LaMarche failed to sway diehard capital punishment legislators with the “traditional ACLU rights talk,” which was viewed either as starry-eyed idealism or dangerous radicalism.

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Halving Hunger: Still Possible?

While time is running out, the global crises push the MDGs desperately off course. The only chance of avoiding failure is a rescue plan for all MDGs that includes the necessary measures, both political and financial. Halving hunger is still possible if developing countries take the lead with the right policies and investments, donor countries increase dramatically their aid to agriculture, food security and social protection under nationally and regionally-driven plans, and the global issues affecting food security are collectively addressed.

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Ancient Italian Town Now Has Wind at Its Back

The towering white wind turbines that rise ramrod straight from gnarled ancient olive groves here speak to something extraordinary happening across Italy.

Faced with sky-high electricity rates, small communities across a country known more for garbage than environmental citizenship are finding economic salvation in making renewable energy. More than 800 Italian communities now make more energy than they use because of the recent addition of renewable energy plants, according to a survey this year by the Italian environmental group Legambiente.

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Top women at the forefront of recovery

A year ago, when the last list of FN100 Influential Women was published, the issues surrounding the role of women in financial services was firmly in the spotlight as part of the endless debate on the causes of the credit crisis.

The general consensus was that tapping into the female talent pool was essential to economic recovery and greater diversity at board level would improve governance and could prevent another global financial crisis.

One year on, the gender agenda seems to have again drifted to the periphery of the public eye.
But, as is clear from Financial News’ fourth annual FN100 list of the most influential women working in European financial markets, there are women already making a sterling contribution.

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Africa’s Smallholder Farmers: Approaches that Work for Viable Livelihoods

This report focuses attention on ways to increase food security in Africa by improving the livelihoods of Africa’s largely neglected smallholder farmers. It presents nine case studies of successful approaches from across Africa which have increased access to decision-making, assets, markets, science, knowledge and technology for smallholder farmers. It illustrates how historical donor neglect has marginalized smallholder farmers, describes how the food and climate crises have spurred on new initiatives to address the needs of these communities and assesses how these initiatives can transform the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Africa.

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Peligran miles de plantas en el mundo

Una quinta parte de las plantas del mundo -el 20%- están amenazadas de extinción, según un informe global publicado por la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (IUCN).

El estudio, afirman los investigadores, es el primero que presenta la verdadera extensión de la amenaza que enfrentan las 380.000 especies de plantas que se conocen en el planeta.

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One-fifth of world's plants at risk of extinction

Plants such as artemisia sweet wormwood provide valuable drugs - in this case, for malaria
One-fifth of the world's plants - the foundation of life on Earth - are at risk of extinction, a study concludes.

Researchers have sampled almost 4,000 species, and conclude that 22% should be classified as "threatened" - the same alarming rate as for mammals.

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Hay signos de una crisis alimentaria que conmoverá al mundo: expertos

Un centro académico que reúne a expertos y trasnacionales de la alimentación advirtió este martes que el reciente incremento en el precio de cereales como trigo, maíz y arroz es el primer signo de una crisis alimentaria latente que conmoverá al mundo en los siguientes diez años.

El Foro Humboldt para la Alimentación y la Agricultura, con sede en Berlín, Alemania, aseguró que si no se adoptan medidas decisivas es probable que los precios de las principales materias primas alimentarias sean entre 50 y 100 por ciento más altos en 2020 de lo que fueron cuando comenzó el milenio.

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Accounting for the future of practice

Exploring the challenges and opportunities for tomorrow’s accountancy practice

The pressures involved with running a modern accountancy practice have increased considerably in light of the volatile economy. For practices to succeed in driving growth it is essential to have a clear view of the marketplace, understand client needs and mitigate external risks. This unique webinar will allow you to gain practical information on the challenges and opportunities that all accountancy firms will be impacted by and the strategies that will allow you to seize the opportunities available going forward.

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The Millennium Development Goals - Meeting targets A progress report

ON SEPTEMBER 22nd world leaders wrap up a three-day UN-sponsored summit in New York to discuss progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. These are broad development targets that were set at a similar meeting ten years ago. Most of the goals involved reductions by 2015 from 1990 levels, and there has indeed been progress towards them, at least on a global scale. But what happens globally can be dominated by what happens in one or two countries.

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HSBC's elevation of Douglas Flint flouts best boardroom practice

What a week in the boardroom at HSBC – the banking giant which has always so prided itself on its seamless succession planning among its highest ecehelons.

This is a bank which has always thumbed its nose at corporate governance guidelines which say chief executives should not be elevated to the chairman's office. And while shareholders vilified some transgressors – like Sir Stuart Rose at Marks & Spencer – they hardly blinked when HSBC broke the code. So it was almost fun – as much as manoeuvrings in a bank boardroom can ever be – to hear of HSBC's finest fighting like ferrets in a sack over who should be chairman: chief executive Mike Geoghegan, finance director Douglas Flint or non-executive director John Thornton.

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Auditor-regulator talks might benefit from code

KPMG suggests code to manage relationship with regulators

A code of conduct should be introduced to manage the relationship between regulators and auditors of banks, according to the head of Big Four firm KPMG.

John Griffith-Jones, KPMG senior partner, said the relationship between bank auditors and regulators “might benefit” from a set of protocols, in a submission to a House of Lords investigation into audit competition.

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ICAEW: US standards proposal complicates convergence

Institute takes a pop at the US standards setter's proposal for fair value accounting

A proposal by the US accounting standards setter to use fair value for all assets will increases complexity and complicate the strategy to converge with international rules, claims the ICAEW.

Dr Nigel Sleigh-Johnson, head of the ICAEW’s Financial Reporting Faculty, said that FASB's strict model for measuring financial instruments will make statements harder to read and information more difficult to understand for investors.

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High cost of offshore wind deployment can come down, says UK Energy Research Centre, but boosting home-grown industry is vital

The UK faces significant challenges in meeting its renewable energy targets for 2020. Offshore wind is widely expected to make a major contribution. However, rising costs have been associated with its deployment. A report from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) released today (27 September) explains why costs have risen significantly since the mid 2000s – and suggests ways in which these costs may be reduced in future.

UKERC’s report states that while the UK has big ambitions to maintain its position as a world-leading player in offshore wind, it is today importing 80% of equipment and services from abroad. There is therefore a substantial opportunity to bolster the UK’s manufacturing industry while building a low carbon economy.

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Half of accountants looking for a new job

Survey finds half of accountants want out of their current role, and three quarters will be looking by spring

Half of accountants are actively looking to move jobs, while three quarters will be job hunting by spring, according to a new survey.

The research from CareersinAudit.com of over 600 accountants, found that half of their respondents wanted to leave their current roles, with the figure set to rise to three-quarters over the next six to twelve months.

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Africa’s path to growth: Sector by sector

The continent’s growth story isn’t entirely about the extractive industries. Seven articles examine the future of a wide range of sectors.

Although Africa’s growth prospects are bright, they differ not only country by country but also sector by sector. In these articles, we examine the possibilities for seven of them: agriculture, banking, consumer goods, infrastructure, mining, oil and gas, and telecommunications. Perhaps the most fundamental point is that Africa’s growth story is hardly limited to the extractive industries. As many as 200 million Africans will enter the consumer goods market by 2015. Banking and telecommunications are growing rapidly too, and infrastructure expenditures are rising significantly faster in Africa than in the world as a whole.

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Auditors slammed by FSA for 'client asset' failings

Auditors must improve their work around checking client assets held investment firms or face the consequences, says the FSA

Failings have been found in how auditors report and check on client assets held by investment institutions, according to the Financial Services Authority.

The authority wants to improve the quality and constituency of auditors' reports on client assets held by FSA-governed institutions.

The FSA's findings have been sent to the ICAEW and accounting disciplinary body the Accountancy & Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB).

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Questions, and Directors, Lost in the Ether

ANNUAL shareholder meetings may not be the most efficient occasion for managers to meet with the owners of the companies they run — they can be hard for shareholders to get to and are sometimes hijacked by gadflies with personal agendas and long-winded, irrelevant questions. Because most, if not all, shareholders cast their votes before the meetings even take place, they can feel ritualistic and not terribly meaningful.

Yet, these congregations do give shareholders a rare opportunity to take the measure of the managers and directors who are supposed to work for them. How executives answer questions that shareholders pitch at them can be very revealing.

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UK 'needs domestic wind energy industry'

Wind turbine manufacture in the UK would help bring costs down, the report says
The UK government should build a home-grown wind power industry if it wants to meet EU targets on renewable energy, a report concludes.

The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) says this would significantly bring down the costs of offshore wind power.

The price of building offshore wind farms in has doubled in five years.

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Green reporting legislation too complex, says watchdog

The Committee on Climate Change has labeled incoming environmental legislation that will impact on finance functions as "unnecessarily complex", a week before its implementation date

The environmental watchdog has criticised upcoming green legislation, just a week before its introduction.

The Committee on Climate Change, (CCC) which advises the government on how to meet its emission reduction targets, has heavily criticised the environmental legislation as "unnecessarily complex".

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A Path to Financial Equality in Malaysia

Fozia Amanulla has grown accustomed to the pressures of negotiating multimillion-dollar deals during her career in Islamic finance. Some things, though, she has never gotten used to. For instance, how certain men have declined to shake her hand, ignored her when she has spoken or refused to look at her across a conference table.

At a meeting with a client in Saudi Arabia, where men and women are commonly segregated in public life, she was the only woman in the building — a fact reinforced by the absence of any toilets for women.

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Can We Build in a Brighter Shade of Green?

WHEN Barbara Landau, an environmental and land-use lawyer in suburban Boston, was shopping for insurance on the energy-efficient home she and her husband were building in the woods just outside of town here, she was routinely asked what sort of furnace the home would have.

“None,” she replied.

Several insurers declined coverage.

“They just didn’t understand what we were trying to do,” Mrs. Landau recalls. “They said the pipes would freeze.”

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In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises

Back in 2007, when the government here announced its plan for “the world’s first zero-carbon city” on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, many Westerners dismissed it as a gimmick — a faddish follow-up to neighboring Dubai’s half-mile-high tower in the desert and archipelago of man-made islands in the shape of palm trees.

Designed by Foster & Partners, a firm known for feats of technological wizardry, the city, called Masdar, would be a perfect square, nearly a mile on each side, raised on a 23-foot-high base to capture desert breezes.

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Checking Africa’s vital signs

A familiarity with Africa’s demographics, economics, and business climate is essential to considering future trajectories of growth.

Africa’s 50-plus economies are growing at a remarkable pace: across the region, real GDP increased by an average of 4.9 percent a year between 2000 and 2008, compared with just 2.4 percent a year during the 1990s. Moreover, a number of African governments have undertaken structural reforms in recent years that are making their economies more attractive to investors. Indeed, the annual flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa in 2008 increased to $62 billion, from $9 billion in 2000.

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Combet urged to fix carbon offsets

CLIMATE Change Minister Greg Combet is under pressure from green companies to resolve a policy bungle that is forcing businesses in search of carbon credits to head overseas.

Companies that certify carbon offsets, such as forest plantations, have been unable to guarantee customers they are providing accredited offsets since the end of June, when the Greenhouse Friendly program lapsed. The carbon pollution reduction scheme was intended to fulfil this role, but its deferral has left offset companies in regulatory limbo.

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FASB going forward

With summer winding down, many in the profession are out of the office enjoying a final respite before Labor Day. On a personal level, my daily commute to Manhattan becomes almost tolerable as the subway and commuter rail crowds winnow drastically.

But in a shocking departure from traditional August complacency, this year saw a pair of blockbuster mergers, as LarsonAllen combined with LeMaster Daniels and Eisner announced that it was merging with Amper, Politziner & Mattia.

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Can This Woman Feed Africa?

Leticia Brenyah dazzled at the Clinton Global Initiative, with her vision of transforming the Ghanaian farming industry one woman at a time.

Leticia Brenyah teaches mathematics and communications technology to high school students in Takoradi, Ghana, a coastal town 125 miles from the capital Accra. To her students, she’s known as “Madame Technology.” But to 250,000 female farmers across the country, she’s known as a powerful change agent. Brenyah is the founder and coordinator of PALMS, a nonprofit organization that trains female farmers in Ghana to use sustainable practices and up-to-date technology to improve crop yields, production and distribution systems.

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'A Clash of Expertise': Adding Human Rights to the World Bank's Agenda

Are human rights an intrinsic value, a set of universal freedoms to be protected as ends in themselves? Or are human rights a means to an end -- a fast track to economic development, peace and prosperity? A lawyer might argue the first, an economist the second. And if the argument took place at the World Bank, the economist would probably win.

Conflicting interpretations of human rights are just one reason the World Bank has yet to adopt an overarching human rights policy, says Galit A. Sarfaty, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. The Bank's organizational culture -- including its management structure, incentive system, decision-making process and internal power dynamics -- has contributed to human rights' short shrift, she maintains.

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Creative thinking to save planet's threatened species

People using their creative energies in the E-Day Ark can help raise awareness of the plight of some of the world's most threatened species, says Matt Prescott, founding organiser of E-Day. In this week's Green Room, he encourages people to get involved to help give biodiversity a voice.

The aim of this year's E-Day is to encourage children to explore the world, to learn about the world's animals and to use their creativity to help the environment.

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Is rising inequality in America exaggerated?

SLATE'S Timothy Noah has just wrapped up a ten-part series on the rise of economic inequality in America. Most of Mr Noah's instalments are devoted to examining the impact of one of the usual suspects—immigration, trade, de-unionisation, education, executive pay, etc—on the level of inequality in the United States. I found Mr Noah's series disappointing from the start because he failed squarely to confront recent findings that challenge the premise of his exercise. In his final effort, Mr Noah does touch on the possibility that reports of rising inequality have been greatly exaggerated only to wave it off. Mr Noah cites the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds, but he might have checked in with Robert Gordon, an economist from Northwestern University. In a recent paper weaving together several strands of new research, Mr Gordon reports that improved use of income datasets "shows that there was no increase of inequality after 1993 in the bottom 99 percent of the population, and can be entirely explained by the behavior of income in the top 1 percent."

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Climate risks greater for long distance migratory birds

Birds embarking on long distance migrations are more vulnerable to shifts in the climate than ones making shorter journeys, a study suggests.

Scientists say the increasingly early arrival of spring at breeding sites in Europe makes it harder for the birds to attract a mate or find food.

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UN asks for action on nature loss, citing poverty

Governments must protect nature better in order to safeguard their countries' wealth, says the UN, as ministers meet for a day of talks on biodiversity.
The session at UN headquarters co-incides with the final day of talks on the Millennium Development Goals, and the UN says the two issues are linked.

Delegates are to discuss why they have failed to meet a 2010 target for curbing loss of biodiversity.

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COFO 2010 / World Forest Week

“Forests and sustainable development - you are the key”

When: 4 - 8 October 2010.
Where: FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy

Forests are key to sustainable development. Although this is a widely held view, there are serious knowledge gaps in understanding how forests contribute to livelihoods, health, education, water and many other areas targeted by internationally agreed development goals. What does society expect of forests and what will be their role in sustainable development? What balance do we need among forests for people, climate change and conservation of biological diversity?

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Climate Change Climbs the Boardroom Agenda

Carbon management is becoming a strategic business priority and competitive driver for the largest global companies, despite the lack of global agreement on climate change. These are among the findings of the 2010 Global 500 report and leadership index released today by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), produced by PwC.

Carbon performance leaders are forging ahead of competitors--85 percent of these leading global companies surveyed reported having board or senior executive level responsibility for climate change and nearly half (48 percent) are now embedding climate change initiatives into the overall business strategy and across the organization.

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Time to close the global energy gap

It is time to close the global energy gap, say Carlos Slim and Kandeh K Yumkella. In this week's Green Room, they explain how universal access to modern energy sources can help make progress towards a number of Millennium Development Goals.

If you are reading this article, you most likely have electricity and heat at home and never think of that fact as at all remarkable.
Yet more than two billion people - one in three people on our planet - have no access to modern energy to light and heat the dwellings in which they live.

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Former correspondent and editor explains the drop in quality of BBC’s climate coverage

Shocker: For 2011, BBC has "explicitly parked climate change in the category 'Done That Already, Nothing New to Say'."

This past Monday night, discussing climate change at a very poorly-attended (as usual, when the subject is global warming or peak oil) screening at the Frontline Journalists’ Club in London of the movie Collapse with Michael Ruppert — yes, flawed, but with much sound analysis about oil and energy — I heard from a former BBC producer colleague that internal editorial discussions now under way at the BBC on planning next year’s news agenda have in fact explicitly parked climate change in the category “Done That Already, Nothing New to Say.”

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Climate disruption caused by global warming driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases

Last week Fox News and other conservative media outlets tried once again to fabricate controversy over climate science when they pounced on a presentation made by the President’s science adviser Dr. John Holdren in Oslo. In it, Holdren makes the case (for the umpteenth time) that it’s time to move past the oversimplified term “global warming” and start facing the painful reality that without sharply reducing our carbon pollution, we face something more akin to a “global climate disruption.”

Sadly, even the Atlantic monthly (which is seen as center-left but is center-right on climate) repeated the right-wing narrative that the White House was somehow pushing new rhetoric in place of real science with its stenographic post, “Right Has Field Day With New ‘Global Warming’ Term.”

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Oceans divide over 1970s warming

The surfaces of the oceans went through a short period of rapid temperature change 40 years ago, scientists have found - but the cause is unknown.

Top layers of Northern Hemisphere water cooled by about 0.3C; the south saw roughly the same degree of warming.

Writing in the journal Nature, the team suggests that air pollution cannot be responsible for the changes, as has been suggested for mid-century cooling.

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Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America

Over the past decade, I have traveled with Glenn to some of the world's biodiversity hot spots and other endangered regions where CI is working - from the Pantanal wetlands in southwestern Brazil to the Atlantic rain forest on Brazil's coast, from the Guyana Shield forest wilderness in southern Venezuela to the Rio Tambopata macaw research station in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, from the exotic-sounding highland of Shangri-La in Chinese-controlled Tibet to the tropical forests of Sumatra and the coral-ringed islands off Bali, in Indonesia. For me, these trips have been master classes in biodiversity, as were my own travels to the Masai Mara in Kenya and the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania and the vast Empty Quarter of the Saudi Arabian Desert and - before I had kids - a rappelling trip inside die salt domes of the Dead Sea.

In many ways, though, the first trip Glenn and I ever took taught me everything I needed to know about the biodiversity challenge we are facing. In 1998 we went to Brazil, and the trip began with the most unusual interview - location wise - that I have ever conducted.

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Opportunity Green conference covers energy investment, Chinese competition ... and eco-friendly bento boxes

Green companies and profitable companies don’t have to be mutually exclusive categories, panelists said Thursday at the fourth annual Opportunity Green conference in downtown Los Angeles.

Roughly 650 participants are registered for the event, which continues Friday at Los Angeles Center Studios. Television shows such as "Mad Men" and "Project Runway" have filmed at the location.

Exhibitors displayed lounge chairs made of recyclable nylon and steel, eco-friendly paper products and sleek bento boxes made of “safe” plastic free of dangerous chemicals near a large dragon-shaped installation composed of plastic bottles.

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Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 36th Session

When: 11-14 and 16 October 2010
Where: Rome, Italy

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Number of Americans living in poverty 'increases by 4m'

One in seven Americans was living in poverty in 2009 with the level of working-age poor the highest since the 1960s, the US Census Bureau says.

The number of people in poverty increased by nearly 4m - to 43.6m - between 2008 and 2009, officials said.

The bureau defines poverty as any family of four living on less than $21,954 a year.

Meanwhile, new figures showed home foreclosures in August hit the highest level since the mortgage crisis began.

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Breaking Out of a Wind Ghetto

Saturated with too much energy from wind and water, the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in the Pacific Northwest, has been forced to look for outside help. For the moment its problems represent an extreme, but experts predict that other systems will find themselves in the same pickle as utilities build more wind machines in an effort to reach state-mandated quotas for renewable energy.

Bonneville, which issued a report this month on its rough patch, went through a period in June where it literally had to give energy away and induce neighboring utilities to shut down their fossil-fuel powered plants. The problem was that its own territory was struck by unexpected storms that filled its dams with water.

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Human Powered Plane Takes Flight In Toronto

It's a dream many of us had as a child: to be able to fly. And while we can jet across the globe in airplanes, well, it's just not the same. But a team of students at the University of Toronto has brought us one step closer to that dream with a plane that's powered entirely by its pilot.

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Study: Organic Cell Solar Trumps Silicon

There’s growing excitement these days around organic photovoltaic solar cells, which use semiconducting plastics instead of the traditional silicon-based cells to produce thin-film solar delivery systems. But are organic cells really a better alternative over an entire life-cycle? Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) researchers say one of the first studies to address that question has yielded positive results.

According to an RIT press release, university researchers attempted to calculate the energy use and environmental impact that comes with material collection, fabrication, mass production and use of organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells. They found that “the embodied energy — or the total energy required to make a product — is less for organic solar cells compared with conventional inorganic devices.”

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Seguimos retrasados en el cumplimiento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio

Estos días, líderes alrededor del mundo se han reunido en la ciudad estadounidense de Nueva York, en la sede de las Naciones Unidas en una cumbre titulada la Cumbre para la Revisión del Cumplimiento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM), organizada para revisar el desarrollo del cumplimiento con estos Objetivos.

Los Objetivos del Milenio se establecieron en 2001 cuando se fijaron el 2015 como el año objetivo para su cumplimiento. Ahora que estamos a dos tercios del camino vemos que, aunque se ha avanzado notablemente, queda mucho por hacer. No obstante, como es normal con las multitudinarias reuniones multilaterales, hemos visto bonitas palabras, muchas sonrisas y muchas fotos.

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What are the prospects for international climate governance?

The Chatham House Conference on Climate Change 2010, Climate Change: The way forward in a post-Copenhagen world will ask whether an international deal on climate will be reached in the next year. If not, what alternative forms of governance will emerge and what practical steps governments and business can take.

Political leaders, chief negotiators, experts, analysts and heads of business from developed and developing countries will offer insights into crucial issues including:

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Open Letter to the World Economic Forum: Women Key to Long-Term Growth

This week, world leaders and the world's largest corporations will be gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss, in the words of the summit's theme, how to "Rethink, Redesign and Rebuild" the global economy. It is our hope leaders take time to consider that women - more than half the population - contribute to global economic stability and security and must be fully integrated into any recovery plans.

As a growing number of thought leaders and world bodies - including corporate initiatives like Goldman Sachs' $100 million investment in training 10,000 women business leaders -herald the pivotal and transformative role of women and girls to enrich societies everywhere, we must adopt strategies to achieve gender equality not only because it's just and moral but because without it, no country will achieve solid prosperity.

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The new politics of climate change: building political momentum and community support for adequate action on climate change

In regard to responding to the enormous challenges of climate change, the public debate in Australia has been frustratingly narrow and yet polarising. The Rudd/Gillard governments have put nearly all their emphasis on the twice-defeated Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and an increased roll-out renewable energy alternatives, while the Abbott-led opposition has given new oxygen to climate change scepticism and has talked very loosely about 'direct action' rather than taxation.

The extraordinary outcome of the recent federal election has changed the political climate significantly yet big challenges lie ahead for building an adequate political response to what Kevin Rudd properly called the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’. Professor Robyn Eckersley and Dr Martin Mulligan will discuss ways of building political momentum and broader community support for a more fundamental shift in the way we look at this 'issue'.

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Beyond GDP

A new global comparison of standards of living

MANY people complain that conventional measures of GDP fail to capture a country’s true standard of living. But their attempts to improve on these conventional metrics are ad hoc. In a new paper* Charles Jones and Peter Klenow of Stanford University propose a new measure of standards of living based on a simple thought experiment: if you were reborn as a random member of another country, how much could you expect to consume, in goods and leisure, over the course of your life? America, for example, has a higher GDP per person than France.

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Cleaner for the Environment, Not for the Dishes

“My dishes were dirtier than before they were washed,” one wrote last week in the review section of the Web site for the Cascade line of dishwasher detergents. “It was horrible, and I won’t buy it again.”

“This is the worst product ever made for use as a dishwashing detergent!” another consumer wrote.

Like every other major detergent for automatic dishwashers, Procter & Gamble’s Cascade line recently underwent a makeover.

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